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Word has gotten around, but in case you don’t follow this sort of thing: Rifftrax is run by the former writers and stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3K was a strange show in that an episode became funnier after repeated viewings. Part of this is the nature of the humor. The more familiar you are with the movie, the funnier you’ll find the jokes arrayed against it. Because of this, I’d always thought the show would have been even better if they could have somehow secured the rights to lampoon big-budget films. I know this was impossible, but that doesn’t change the fact that it would have been ideal.

But with Rifftrax they’ve found a way around it. They just sell an audio file. (Sans DRM! Yay freedom.) You get the movie via Netflix (or whatever) and carefully sync up the audio and the movie and play them together. I was thinking of putting it on a boombox and taking it into the theater, but apparently this is frowned upon.

I understand it’s a bit annoying to get the timing synced up at the start, but the result is something to the effect of MST3K, only better.

I don’t know about better – I wish they still did godawful films. The Star Trek 5 one, for example, is fantastic, but there’s nothing really on a par with “Manos: The Hands of Fate” or “The Delta Knights”.

MST3K was also one of those shows that got funnier the more people you had watching it. I remember an episode I saw by myself once, and it sorta fell flat. Watched the same episode a few days later with half a dozen friends: hilarious! There’s just something about group humor.

Here in Austin, there are people riffing on big budget films. They were called Mr. Sinus Theatre for a while, but the people who owned the licensing to “MST3K” sent them a cease and desist letter, so they changed it to Mr. Pancake or something. Anyway, yeah, carrying on the tradition at the Alamo Drafthouse. :)

Actually, if you are watching the films on your PC, you can download a Riff player that will automatically sync a dedicated file with the DVD, which is quite handy. Also worth checking out are their direct download shorts, which are absolutely priceless.

You know, if it’s possible to get RHPS showing at midnight every Saturday for the last 30 years, just how hard would it be to get one of these movies and splice in the rifftrax soundtrack on the theater sound system?

Also look for The Film Crew (Mike, Kevin and Bill) who have returned to producing DVDs with commentaries (although for movies no-one ever heard of). They also did a whole slew of introduction to various movies for some movie-a-thon on a TV channel, just look on YouTube for them.

MST3K was a strange show in that an episode became funnier after repeated viewings.

I dunno, I never really liked watching an MST3K episode the second time because I already heard the jokes before. Plus I don’t like watching movies more than once unless it’s really good. I agree that knowledge of the movie can make it funnier, but knowledge of the riffs just ruins it for me.

Has anyone here heard of Wizard people, dear reader? It is the most wonderful interpretation of Harry Potter I have ever heard. I suggest looking it up on youtube, or going to http://www.illegal-art.org/video/wizard.html to download it. It is a similar idea to rifftrax, but a narration instead of commentary. It is Brad Neely’s magnum opus, if you will, and if you’ve seen his other stuff on youtube or superdeluxe.com

Thanks for the nice comments, everyone (and for the original blog post!). We have some more cool stuff coming up, some surprises (or “suh-prises”) in store. Keep checking the site and let us know on the forum what else you’d like to see!

Eh, my mom and I are both diehard MST3K fans (I swear we’ve memorized a few of the episodes), and we both find the guys in Rifftrax to be too… whiny now. They’re not making jokes with/at the movie, they’re just mocking it repeatedly. At least, that’s my gut reaction.

Ben, only a FEW episodes? I can recite several right now, if you like.. :)

With regard to the guys being too whiny, I think it’s fair to say that there are some tracks that feel a little like that. I think in the almost 2 years we’ve been around, they have found their niche, and the writing itself has improved vastly.

I’d highly recommend Eragon, Transformers and The Matrix if there is anyone considering giving them a shot. I’ve also heard great things about Spider-Man, but I haven’t seen that one yet.

And we’re pumping out a lot of public domain shorts for a dollar each, so if the feature length riffing isn’t your cup of tea…